Mary Joan Koos

With love and admiration we announce the passing of Mary Joan Koos.

Mary Jo Koos (nee Bergquist) was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on July 7, 1929, the second daughter of Harold and Hilda Bergquist. She was a 1947 graduate of White Bear Lake High School and attended Gustavus Adolphus College where she met her future husband, Gerald (Jerry) W. Kuss. Mary Jo continued her education at the Swedish Hospital School of Nursing, graduating with an RN degree in 1951. She and Jerry were married on August 2, 1952. Mary Jo worked at Swedish Hospital while Jerry completed his medical education at the University of Minnesota, and they began raising a family of six children. Golden Valley, Minnesota became the family's home base, with the North Shore of Lake Superior a favorite retreat in all seasons. Mary Jo was drawn to the lake and found something deep and restorative in Minnesota's North Country.

Mary Jo was a strong, bright, thoughtful, discerning individual, with a love of reading. She delighted in the added joy that came with time together and shared stories with her grandchildren and great grandchildren. She was full of warmth and welcome. She treated everyone she encountered as friends. It was easy to see how she was a homecoming queen and Miss White Bear Lake. Those qualities remained throughout her life. She was from a generation that met life's challenges and chose to lead by positive example.

That example was best described by her husband in a poem he wrote to her one Valentine's Day. He drew inspiration from the North Shore country they retired to, and where Mary Jo lived the last 35 years of her life. He entitled the poem She Is:

She is like a snowfall deep in the woods, she is

With reverence covering unpleasantness left by the growing year

Like a snowflake, she is heaven sent

Fragile and unique, snowflake-like she can melt into a tear

She is like moonlight on Lake Superior, she is

The percussion and shimmer of the water is enchantment

Like this great lake, she is deep and clear

Fresh air on fresh scent

She is like a field of daisies, she is

Some search for beauty, and this flower shows them how

Like a daisy, beauty should be free,

And felt with grace to bestow

Mary Jo had a long, fulfilled life of family, friends and faith. She was preceded in death by her parents, her sister Delores Jean Knoble (2013), brother Harold John Bergquist (1949), brother Ronald Leonard Bergquist (2020), husband Gerald W. Koos (2008), daughter Heidi Joan (Bill) Shaughnessy (2018), and granddaughter May Jacqueline Koos (2024).

Survivors include her sister Nancy Bell, sons Shaun (Kathleen) Koos, Zane (Evia) Koos, Tyler Koos, Fletcher (Carol) Koos, daughter Kirsten Koos, fifteen grandchildren and eleven great grandchildren. The family is deeply grateful to Duluth Essential Health Staff for their care for Mary Jo and family support.

With respect for Mary Jo's wishes, there is a private family service. Memorials are preferred to Salvation Army, Special Olympics, Second Harvest Northland or Gustavus Adolphus College.